View Full Version : The MOST WHACK battle you ever fought!
Ok so recently I just fought a ridiculous battle in my Mak campaign. I recently crossed the Agean and started pushing the Arche back where they came from.
So the battle happend after I took ipssus (sp?). They hadn't built a wall yet so I was able to just attack. there were alot of whittled elite units in there and i came out with substantial casualties. Right after that a large AS army attacked and I had to fight as there was still no wall.
Their army was about 7 medium phalanx units and a general
I had 2 pezhatairoi units and 2 levy phalanx units all at half strength, 3 well experienced slinger units and about equal to a full unit of heavy cavalry along with my general.
I set up the troops to block the streets and when the phalangites were all engaged I brought the cavalry and slingers in from behind.
the slingers being the badasses they are, shot the AS General's pony unit right in their pretty little bums and killed them all:rifle: . meanwhile my general and other cavalry were carving through about 4 of the phalangite units as most of my foot troops were wasted by this point. the sneaky bastards sent a couple units around the outside and tried to take the town square by the timer but I was having none of that wanking:whip: . All the cavalry died including the body guard, except for my general I used him to keep the town square neutral while bringing up the slingers to try and scare the last two enemy units off. With their last set of ammunition I charged and luckily they broke.
I chased every one of those dirty dogs down with my general:charge: alone and thus broke the back of AS power in the area for a few years at least.
in the end I had three half strength slingers and my General. one of my craziest battles ever.:sunny:
I'm sorry I have no pics but hopefully next time. Please tell your awesome war stories of victory or close defeat and post some pics too.
I fought a large battle with the Koinon Helleon as Epirus just five minutes ago. Plenty of those evil Spartan Bodyguards running around and screwing with me, but I finally made the majority of their army rout.
The last three or four units had taken up random positions all over the battle field, so I had to walk back and forth about four times to get everything and finish the battle.
Then a couple battles before the above, my general died while chasing down a unit of slingers from behind, with no chances of Friendly Fire...I just reloaded that battle >_<
Then a couple battles before the above, my general died while chasing down a unit of slingers from behind, with no chances of Friendly Fire...I just reloaded that battle >_<
that is whack:viking:
Geoffrey S
07-14-2007, 00:26
One beautiful battle was two armies of mine (Makedon) against two Ptolemaioi armies. My two armies outnumbered their main army but was qualitatively worse, and the enemy reinforcements would far outnumber both. It was a really tough battle grinding down the main force, and then their reinforcements hit... gruelling, a very close defeat. I've never seen the AI keep a line so solid with such good use of reinforcements, either before or after.
As Armenia I had a ton of exciting battles where my cavalry archers after empting their quievers would charge elite phanalax and eventually through sheer will break them.
Musopticon?
07-14-2007, 00:33
Most whack battle ever was in 0.74, when the Crimea was still a nest of overpowered peltastai. I had to face a fullstack of nearly nothing else except HA and Peltastai and had to spent the whole freaking battle finding hidden peltastai wannabe-kryptoi from the long Crimean grass. I felt sorry for my "bananashields"(as Obelics calls them), my pandotaphoi phalangitai, because they had to run all over the battlefield, uncovering nests of sneaky peltastai, then stand in phalanx and take their javelins without breaking and then mow down the bastards without dying. My two units of Skuda HA had died ags ago and my general was so weak from long marches in wintry storms that I had nearly nothing but phalangists and some light infantry mercs. Two hours of hunting peltastai and I finally won. Then a wondering Skuda army attackeed my poor Pontic troops when I was sieging Chersonesos.
Craziest battle ever.
Most memorable EB campaign ever(would be most memorable RTW campaign, if it weren't for RTR's Armenian migration to Iberia and Africa), even if I got obliterated by Hai.
Huge battle in the wasteland, innumerable AS silver shields aided by archers and cataphracts vs my HA army (mostly light Aorsi and Sarmatians only the general had a truly powerful charge) and 2 units of Thanvare Payahdag. It was truly wild arrows showered from everywhere, it started getting very exciting when the quivers were empty and the archers were trying to keep the phalanxes busy long enough for my cav to charge but there were so many... Finally their general fell...
And the last 2 phalanxes were charged by my general (the only unit left) more than 6-7 times each, in the end my general and 6 of his bodyguards remained (he was a faction heir and started with quite a few).
The magnificent seven were born...
Centurio Nixalsverdrus
07-14-2007, 03:54
Just yesterday I (Mak) had a really cool heroic victory. My forces consisted of 4 units of mistophoroi phalangitai, 2 units thureophoroi, 2 pheraspidai with 30 men each (played on huge), one unit Agrianians with 40 men, plus 2 units of Cretan archers of about 100 each, and finally one unit thessalian cavalry with 25 men and thrakioi prodromoi with 45. The enemy (AS) had over 3000 men, of whom were 1400 Thorakitai, 700 klerouchikoi phalangitai, 100 Pheraspidai, one unit Thureophoroi and a general and 200 hetairoi, plus additional crap.
My forces were situated on top of a large dune, Thureophoroi at the flanks. First attacked their Hetairoi my Thureophoroi on each flank, but were beaten back with the help of the Agrianians and eventually routed by the Thraikioi Prodromoi. Then they attacked me at the right wing, mostly their Thorakitai hordes. I brought the reserves of Agrianians and Pheraspidai in a line to fight them. Then I marched the Phalanx around their flank. They could fight downhill while ramming the enemy. A single Phalanx unit was attacked by the general, but the general was killed by the Thrakians again. Then the Seleukid Pheraspidai attacked this unit, but were beaten back and destroyed by the Phalanx with help of the Cretans, who are very good in melee. Then I turned the Cretans and let them charge the side of the enemy, and they managed to rout the main forces. The rest was only terminating some Thorakitai units who reorganized in the distance after their flight.
I didn't loose that many men, even my Pheraspidai corps and the Agrianians were still alive. The only disappointment was that Captain Sosias was not promoted man of the hour.~D
PenguinLobster
07-14-2007, 04:19
around 500 troops. 3 units of archers, 1 native phalanx, 1 native spearmen, my Bactrian general and some hellenic spearmen. All missing different amounts of men.
VS
2300 seleucids. mostly native phalanxes and spearmen attacking Persepolis.
I manage to light every ram but one which breaks the gate and my men form a ring around the opening. After slugging it out for awhile a few seleucids start wavering and theirs big holes in the line for my archers to fill with fire arrows. One unit breaks and the chain effect routs the entire army. Final casulaties where all but 64 seleucids and 300 bactrians. Strangely the general leading still had the 'bored' trait after this.
I've had two battles that qualify rather equally, and for the same basic reason:
Battle 1) KH @ Thermon - outnumbered by about 800 soldiers, and intimidated a bit by the epilektoi hoplitai in thermon. there was a massive pileup outside of the gate to the city (it started at the gate, but they pushed me outside), and I charged my cav bodyguard (old EB build) to try to break the enemy. In the course of the fighting the cav bodyguard was whittled down to the FM and one guard, who spend much of the battle around the second rank of my lines, giving the trumped call when possible, and occasionally charging into battle themselves. I eventually won the battle, after suffering about 60% casualties (over 4000 casualties between the two sides in the battle).
Battle 2) Getai @ Tylis - smaller scale battle than the first, but in this one, vicious combat against the Galatai left my army in this state: 1 FM (no guards alive), two units of 20 and 34 getikoi stratiotai (on huge size), 12 drapanai, and 45 of an as-yet-un-previewed Getic infantry unit. The constantly dwindling army formed a sort of shield wall at the base of the hill toward the town square, and with the bonuses provided by a skillful general, managed to hold off more than a thousand galatai off--while I finished them off at the town square with little more than 100 soldiers, I'd been down below 200 for more than five minutes before that. Their tenacious defense of their position inside the town was amazing, and to have the FM all by his lonesome was something else.
I was defending Ankyra (as Arverni) against AS. I rallied with 5 units of Lugoae. They had a general, 2 units of slingers, 1 unit of misthophoroi thureophoroi, 1 unit of merc hoplites, 1 merc phalanx, 2 units of skirmishers and 1 unit of mad asabara.
In the end i won, with a total of about 25 Lugoae remaining :laugh4:
Swordmaster
07-14-2007, 16:22
Hah, not really a battle, but pretty whack nonetheless: Four units of Accensi were marching to somewhere in northern Thrace to garrison a recently conquered city and were ambushed by an army of about a dozen Dacian shock infantry. I didn't put them on skirmish mode and manually ran them around, once in a while firing a volley and killing tens of those unarmoured Dacians. Heroic victory with zero casualties. :dizzy2:
In 0.72. I was Makedonia and I was already fighting Arche Seleuka and its huge legions. I was attacked and lost a fight against a hugely superior AS army, and the only ones to get out alive were like... 40 Pezhetairoi and my general with 12 or so of his followers, since my armyhad lost, they retreated a little bit and I was engaged once again by the same army. They had like 400 elite soldiers. I had 50. So I thought "What the heck. Let me try and kill their General, the very least." So the battle loaded, and I went trying to circle with my General and my phalanx around the army to kill the General. (He had 30 or so bodyguards) Basically their entire army started marching towards my two units and while I managed to keep a fair distance with my General from any on-coming units, one of their cavalries started making out for my phalanx. So I turned my unit to face the cavalry, lowered the phalanx and the cavalry charged against the spearwall. Now this is where all gets wierd. The rest of the armies were still some 10 seconds form reaching my phalanx, and only the cavalry and my phalanx were engaged. Then, out of nowhere, their entire army begins retreating (Their Cavalry hadn't broken yet)
I was like "Yay! The 40 men phalanx who turns away an army!" I didn't even bother persuing, in case they would change their minds and return to kill my units. And so they left happily and my General happily lived.
(P.S. I later reinforced my General with another good army, and he died fighting that very same army who retreated. :( )
in my caziest ever battle i won with only one single scythian horse archer.
as the haysadan i was betrayed by the sweboz and they laid seige to one of my cities nw of the black sea. they had two generals, 3 heavy inf and one jav cav. i had 1/3 unit of slingers 3 hellenic skirmishers and 3/4 strength unit of scythian horse archers. i sallied once and was able to wittle down some of their infantry but unfortunately their horses caught my horse archers and i was left with about 13. they attacked the next turn. i was able to reduce their infantry further with my ranged troops whilst they approached the walls, but once breach had occured defeat seemed inevitable. then in a stroke of good fortune i managed to cause their horses to rout off the map. this meant they had no one who could catch my horse archers and no ranged troops.
i ended the battle with literally 1 single horse archer being chased around the town square by their generals for about 5 minutes. i won the battle by time out and the next turn i was able to bring in reinforcements and go on the offensive.
My most impressive battle was this one:
Campaign Situation in 212BC:
https://img259.imageshack.us/img259/8197/greekinvasionin212bcsaksw3.th.jpg (https://img259.imageshack.us/my.php?image=greekinvasionin212bcsaksw3.jpg)
In 210BC I engaged this Koinon armada with 2 full stacks, the result:
https://img259.imageshack.us/img259/48/hugebattle210bcne7.th.jpg (https://img259.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hugebattle210bcne7.jpg)
Note that my second army and garrison troops did not take part in this battle. Yet their presence did cause some prehistoric lagg :dizzy2:
That same turn I annihilated the last remaining full stack :juggle2:
Tristuskhan
07-14-2007, 20:08
My whackiest battle was not with EB, but with RTR 6.3.
I had a full Seleucid elite stack (something like ten elite phallanxes, four imitation legionnaries, two archers, two horse archers, one heavy cav) lead by a green general. It had to fight, on the same turn, twice two full roman legionnary stacks and one single. I won but my army had to withdraw from the province it was defending and wait for reinforcements. Killed more than 8000 legionnaries in three battles and went from 2000 men down to something like 350.
what are "imitation legionnaries"? ~;)
for me, I beat a wacked full-stack insta-spawning Eleutheroi army with Lusotanna being outnumbered 2:1 or so Don't recall the exact number, but it was 300-something versus 800, I really can't grasp why the AI decided sending in one unit after another would be the right way...
Tristuskhan
07-14-2007, 21:57
what are "imitation legionnaries"? ~;)
Post-Marian Roman-style troops available for a few factions in RTR.
Closest defeat I ever had was as Sweboz, attacked some rebel settlement (gawjam something) took me almost the whole time limit to get up to the plaza, and I had about 30 seconds left and my whole remaining army had to defeat a few spearmen...
At the end of the timer 1 guy was left. The rebels got a draw, healed millions of casualties, and I did not have the strength to attack again. I almost had a stroke. It's kinda like the reverse of what KARTLOS did.
That's why you play with No Battle Time Limits *wink*
russia almighty
07-15-2007, 05:48
Whack ? Fighting non-stop uber......
thats right
you heard me
you won't believe this
no I really mean this uber
full stack Parthian armies as Rome .
Musopticon?
07-15-2007, 10:39
Pfft, try full stack Hayasdan armies as Getai. Freaking Neo-Assyria, lead by a Samutic(begot from Samus the Ugly) dynasty, most of whom were intoxicated around the 24/7 and still managed to best my barbarian battle barges over pear-bright Pontic("'Ere we go, 'Ere we go...") just because horse archers can cause immense casualties.
Ignopotens
07-18-2007, 13:47
I just fought a pretty strange battle last night
As Getai, I was attacked in Ionia by a full stack Ptolemaic army, it had about 4 phalanxes, and oh..... 15 slingers. Fortunately my army was in a forested area, so I set up my Heavy Phalanxes on the farthest end and lined the path to them with my 4 Drapanai, 11 HA, and 2 Getic Med Cav, and had them hiding.
When the phalanxes advanced towards mine I just sent all my cav units charging into the slingers, routing them like nobody's business. My phalanxes held theirs for a bit while my Drapanai got around em. In the end it was a total rout, something like 1100 of their losses to my 74.
the most whack battle's are one's when i have a phalanx, since the enemy chooses to run his entire army around one of my flank's, so i have to keep rotating my lines for all eternity! until i decide to make a move i suppose. (defensive battle)
Casaladow
07-19-2007, 01:53
My most strange battle ocurred in my recent campaign with the romans -
I was besieging a town that had stone wall, on the last turn the defenders left the town to attack me. After some fight I repelled the defenders forcing back toward the city, and then, when I try to take advantage that the gates were opened and tried to enter the city it happened:
My units where a bit too tired, and not all could come close to the gate in time, in fact only my general did and soon he crossed, the gates closed behind him He suffered several loses, from both oil and arrows, but him, now only with 9 bodyguards, survived. I quickly take him to a safe street.
Note that the gates were not conquered so remains in enemy hands.
After I did that, I tried then to use the ram to storm the gate, but the ram catch fire before came close (and yes, I did bring only one ram, big mistake). Now literally, my general was separated from his army.
To my luck, no more than four or five defenders along with their general where alive inside the town. So with the remaining bodyguard had to captured the town.
My most strange battle ocurred in my recent campaign with the romans -
I was besieging a town that had stone wall, on the last turn the defenders left the town to attack me. After some fight I repelled the defenders forcing back toward the city, and then, when I try to take advantage that the gates were opened and tried to enter the city it happened:
My units where a bit too tired, and not all could come close to the gate in time, in fact only my general did and soon he crossed, the gates closed behind him He suffered several loses, from both oil and arrows, but him, now only with 9 bodyguards, survived. I quickly take him to a safe street.
Note that the gates were not conquered so remains in enemy hands.
After I did that, I tried then to use the ram to storm the gate, but the ram catch fire before came close (and yes, I did bring only one ram, big mistake). Now literally, my general was separated from his army.
To my luck, no more than four or five defenders along with their general where alive inside the town. So with the remaining bodyguard had to captured the town.
heh, if that was a valued general I'd be a little scared for his safety, Lol.
helenos aiakides
07-19-2007, 10:54
If you turn battle time limit off, is there still a time limit to simulate the fact that night would come
nope, the only thing that changes is the weather
Rundownloser
08-14-2007, 08:26
Sorry, the specifics have been blurred a little bit by time (roughly a year and a half, if not more). Seeing that it's a long post, you can get the gist of the thing by looking at nothing besides the summarizing emoticons.
:laugh4:
Anyway, I was playing a Gaulic campaign in the original RTW (as they were my favorite faction). I had a pretty sizable empire spanning all of France, both sides of the Pyrenees and the Alps, and some of Western Germany. Most of my attention was diverted by rampaging Romans and Germans, and I left Narbo relatively unprotected as I thought that my full stack west of the Pyrenees would catch anything coming out of Spain. Not that I expected anything considering Spain were long time allies who had benefited greatly from my continued generosity (that said, I really am not too good at making or maintaining alliances - bit of a warmonger myself).
:oops:
Anyway, a full stack of Spanish troops slipped right past my border garrison and headed strait for Narbo. I didn't even see them until they sieged the town, whose walls were non-existent, namely because I am a fool.
:oops:
They brought some game: couple units of bull warriors, one unit of light cavalry with their captain, and a hand full mid-level infantry, with the rest filled out by their cheapest infantry. I on the other hand had one unit of celtic archers, and two celtic warbands, one of which had my captain.
:oops:
I set up the archers at the mouth of one of the streets leading to the center of the town with warbands at the end of said street. They took the bait and decided that the best way to proceed was to cram every single unit through that little street. I was able to shoot up the bull warrior units and their cav. unit some before my dudes had to withdraw down the street. The cav. unit came crashing into my warbands while they chased after the archers. Before their infantry could arrive, their captain was dead and the unit murdered to a man.
:smash:
Eventually they arrived, and in force, led in by the waves of junk troops. I had the high ground, so they were losing (I believe my warbands might have had a chevron or two, I can't remember). I broke two or three units right there, using the archers to use up the rest of their arrows on the more elite units behind the front lines.
:smash:
However, I lost about somewhere between half and two thirds of my men performing this little trick. So I used the spent archers as a rearguard while I withdrew the warbands to the center of Narbo. However, the archers didn't last as long as I needed them to, and they fled, allowing the Spanish to catch-up with my retreating forces, causing the warband not led by my captain to break as well.
:skull:
My captain held out long enough for my shattered forces to regroup at the center of the town, and then broke himself, losing most of those brave souls in the pursuit. Then the Spanish hit the center of the town, but because of the flow of the battle, the constricted nature of the streets, and the stop and the leapfrogging skirmishes, their best units were still behind a layer of crap.
:skull: but maybe these :clown: will get :smash: 'ed
After about minute or two of brawling at the center of Narbo, I had only two archers and my captain left. My captain, who had somehow managed to fight off the platform then broke and fled. Magically, he made it back and...
:shame:
regrouped.
:inquisitive:
He charged back into combat and smashed some conscript right in the face, killing him outright.
:2thumbsup:
Suddenly, the entire Spanish horde broke and simultaneously fled like they saw the maddening glare of Cthulhu and I was obliged to chase the thousand or so left right out of Narbo with three men screaming words in Celtic I hope are never translated.
:inquisitive:
Heroic victory with a few more than two kills per man.
:yes:
But...
:beam:
no man of the hour.
:furious3:
russia almighty
08-14-2007, 08:43
I still think fighting a super power parthia was probably the most whack .
Extracted from my aborted Getae AAR, where my infantry army got surrounded by a mass of horse archers...
270BC, Winter
Oh, what a year.
In spring I crossed into Skythia. There was a substantial garrison in Olbia, nine units about half cavalry, and a field army of five more with horse archers and heavy cavalry patrolling to the west. It was clear that the recruiting should be good here, if I could take the town with my three chiefs and eleven other units (mainly light infantry). Obviously I wanted to avoid the field army and besiege the town, where my phalanxes would slaughter the cavalry in a street fight. So I feinted at the field army who withdrew in the face of twice their numbers, then dashed for the town and laid siege.
And I was outmanoeuvred! The field army, being pure cavalry, moved faster than I reckoned and hit me from behind. The mixed army came out of town to attack what was now my rear. I was looking at six or seven units of horse archers and two heavy cavalry, from two directions, and no streets to channel them and cover my flanks. I will admit I was tempted to withdraw. That way, I could probably fight the field army and come back later for the town. But I felt the blood pounding in my ears, and a wild savage excitement that has been missing these last twenty years. I could die of old age any day, and I would be lord of Skythia before it happens. So the battle lines were drawn. The numbers were about even, over nine hundred each; but to be an infantry army surrounded by horse archers is a nightmare.
But I did have certain advantages:
- Sheer numbers meant large formations. If I held a spread formation they would not have the range to shoot my units from both sides. I wasn’t surrounded; I just had a circular battlefront.
- With interior lines of communication I could switch units around faster – thus do phalanxes outmanoeuvre cavalry.
- The battlefield was a mix of grassland and light forest. Most of my infantry are experts in forests, and arrows don’t work so well there. Reserves stayed under the trees. So did surprises.
- Their two forces didn’t arrive quite simultaneously. I couldn’t defeat them in detail, but I did take the full brunt of one force before the other.
- I had my share of missiles too: three horse archer bodyguards, two units of foot archers, two of slingers, and a unit of javelin cavalry I’d forgotten.
And so to battle...
I put a ring of missiles around a backbone of phalanxes, all in loose formation. Their field army hit first. The horse archers sat, arrogant in tight order, while I shifted position and targets to catch them from flanks and launched cavalry feints to turn them around and shoot at their backs. I took substantial losses in the missile duel, but they took considerably more. The Skythian noble cavalry set its sights on my archers, but by the time their charge went home it met a phalanx who’d just run like Olympians and reformed as they skidded to a halt. The horses suffered horribly, and then the falx men were around and at their backs. The slaughter was good.
I will never use those cavalry so foolishly when they serve me.
Then the force from town arrived at my “rear”; it was half cavalry with spearmen, skirmishers and a phalanx making the rest. We repeated the missile duel for a while, though honours were now more even since they had the numbers. Then their infantry reached mine, and just at that moment their first horse archer group ran out of arrows and decided to charge. Things got very confused. Very confused indeed. It rained horses instead of arrows.
I’m not completely sure what happened in the next ten minutes. I flung units around, reinforcing my flanks and attacking theirs. In places there were so many dead I could not identify my troops to give orders – I have always had trouble seeing colours, and patterns of dead horses confuse my eyesight. My javelin cavalry just vanished: I had fifty at the start of the battle and none at the end, and I’ve absolutely no idea how they died. It was far too confused for useful archery from a distance, which was good because their new forces were the only ones with ammunition. But in the confusion I managed to control the one crucial thing: the intersection of phalanxes and cavalry. Their cavalry met the sharp end of my phalanxes, and their phalanx headed off into the distance pursuing a unit of my slingers who were out of bullets. I didn’t order that, the captain of the slingers did it himself. If I had a daughter, she’d be married to him by now and he’d be a chief.
I rallied my men continually. Their morale is good and they trust me a lot. So it was the Skythians who started to rout, here and there, and as they thinned I slowly put a proper line back together to fix their remaining units. A third of the falx men still lived, so they swung around this line and their blades drank well again. My chiefs charged their more stubborn units from behind. And we routed all of them, and there was a glorious pursuit, and good slaughter. Then the slingers led their phalanx back to my army to die.
It was a heroic victory. We counted 827 of their bodies on the field, and 451 of ours. Now I am wintering in Olbia, which we took from a few dozen survivors after the battle.
... so I won by outmanoevring their cavalry with my infantry, whilst surrounded. I had no idea whether I was going to win or lose until they were routing.
Dyabedes of Aphrodisias
08-14-2007, 16:11
I just had a whack battle, but it was still fun.
I was playing Sweboz, and I was attacking Gawjam-Hattoz, which had a full stack of various German units, mostly of fair quality. I punctured four holes in their wall, only two of which ended up with fighting. The first was a bloodbath; my invading units got hammered pretty hard because it was in the road from the town square, and the enemy had to pass it to get to any of the breaches. My units there formed a 3/4 surrounded bulge complete with constant arrow fire. They just had to hang on until the little Swainoz at the other breach broke, which took a painfully and surprisingly long time. After that, it was a push-n-shove match; my unruly hoard vs. their unruly hoard head to head. I had most of my units just piled on fighting most of their units. It was pretty bloody.
I began to push them back with my superior German-ness, and I killed the general, and they all fled to the town square, about 600 of them. Then I brought my unruly mob up and started another slugfest whereby I began sustaining massive casualties to the point I thought I might actually lose. However, they began to die faster because they just had Frankamannoz and Bugimannoz left after all of their other unit types were effectively eliminated. Their town square happened to have a wall at its back, so they were pinned against the wall while I was just taking the liberty of slaughtering them piecemeal. I left an awesome and unprecedented pile of corpses that led from the wall all the way up the road to the town square; it was amazing. My guys were whittled down substantially, but we were 200 levies away from victory (heroic victory too; the odds bar had me on the disadvantage).
Then the timer ran out, and it was a close defeat. I killed nearly 3,000 of them, and they killed 1,200 of mine. :wall:
Hooahguy
08-14-2007, 16:39
wow- thats really unlucky.
mine was a quick battle in RTW, as carthage versus the scipii. i had 1 unit of sacred band, 2 units of poeni infantry , 2 units of iberian LI, 2 units of sligers, 2 units of town watch, 2 units of those small elephants, 2 units of iberian LC, 4 units of libiyan spearmen, a unit of numidian skirmisher cavalry, and finally a general unit. in short, my entire left wing was routed in the first 15 minutes, including both of my elephant units. my right wing, including my general, swung around and hit the roman flanks. hard. in short, i was able to rout most of the scipii, and kill thier general, but all i had left was 2 units of libiyan spearmen, my general and 17 bodyguards, and my unit of poeni infantry. well, somehow almost all the roman units rallied and wiped out a unit of libiyan spearmen. my general and the rest of my "army" came and finally routed them again, but this time, i left a unit of libiyans to keep chasing the romans, while i turned my poeni to defeat the lone unit of roman cavalry, and my general to kill the enemy nit of velites. needless to say, i won, but all i had left was my general and 7 bodyguards, 78 libiyan spearmen, and 113 poeni infantrymen. a heroic victory i might add. i killed over 2,500 romans, while losing around 2,000 of my own. i still have no clue how i won. :laugh4:
Intranetusa
08-15-2007, 00:21
1. Defeating around 3 stacks (2 full, 1 half, around 50 units) of elite + regular Seleudic Phalangites with only a quarter stack of beat up triari and millta units....it was a seige battle
200ish soldiers vs 2300+
2. Using 19 units of merc horse archers + cavalry general to destroy/capture the entire Getai nation and annihilated a full stack of around 1600 greek hoplites with only 8-9 casualties.
nice story!
Extracted from my aborted Getae AAR, where my infantry army got surrounded by a mass of horse archers...
270BC, Winter
Oh, what a year.
In spring I crossed into Skythia. There was a substantial garrison in Olbia, nine units about half cavalry, and a field army of five more with horse archers and heavy cavalry patrolling to the west. It was clear that the recruiting should be good here, if I could take the town with my three chiefs and eleven other units (mainly light infantry). Obviously I wanted to avoid the field army and besiege the town, where my phalanxes would slaughter the cavalry in a street fight. So I feinted at the field army who withdrew in the face of twice their numbers, then dashed for the town and laid siege.
And I was outmanoeuvred! The field army, being pure cavalry, moved faster than I reckoned and hit me from behind. The mixed army came out of town to attack what was now my rear. I was looking at six or seven units of horse archers and two heavy cavalry, from two directions, and no streets to channel them and cover my flanks. I will admit I was tempted to withdraw. That way, I could probably fight the field army and come back later for the town. But I felt the blood pounding in my ears, and a wild savage excitement that has been missing these last twenty years. I could die of old age any day, and I would be lord of Skythia before it happens. So the battle lines were drawn. The numbers were about even, over nine hundred each; but to be an infantry army surrounded by horse archers is a nightmare.
But I did have certain advantages:
- Sheer numbers meant large formations. If I held a spread formation they would not have the range to shoot my units from both sides. I wasn’t surrounded; I just had a circular battlefront.
- With interior lines of communication I could switch units around faster – thus do phalanxes outmanoeuvre cavalry.
- The battlefield was a mix of grassland and light forest. Most of my infantry are experts in forests, and arrows don’t work so well there. Reserves stayed under the trees. So did surprises.
- Their two forces didn’t arrive quite simultaneously. I couldn’t defeat them in detail, but I did take the full brunt of one force before the other.
- I had my share of missiles too: three horse archer bodyguards, two units of foot archers, two of slingers, and a unit of javelin cavalry I’d forgotten.
And so to battle...
I put a ring of missiles around a backbone of phalanxes, all in loose formation. Their field army hit first. The horse archers sat, arrogant in tight order, while I shifted position and targets to catch them from flanks and launched cavalry feints to turn them around and shoot at their backs. I took substantial losses in the missile duel, but they took considerably more. The Skythian noble cavalry set its sights on my archers, but by the time their charge went home it met a phalanx who’d just run like Olympians and reformed as they skidded to a halt. The horses suffered horribly, and then the falx men were around and at their backs. The slaughter was good.
I will never use those cavalry so foolishly when they serve me.
Then the force from town arrived at my “rear”; it was half cavalry with spearmen, skirmishers and a phalanx making the rest. We repeated the missile duel for a while, though honours were now more even since they had the numbers. Then their infantry reached mine, and just at that moment their first horse archer group ran out of arrows and decided to charge. Things got very confused. Very confused indeed. It rained horses instead of arrows.
I’m not completely sure what happened in the next ten minutes. I flung units around, reinforcing my flanks and attacking theirs. In places there were so many dead I could not identify my troops to give orders – I have always had trouble seeing colours, and patterns of dead horses confuse my eyesight. My javelin cavalry just vanished: I had fifty at the start of the battle and none at the end, and I’ve absolutely no idea how they died. It was far too confused for useful archery from a distance, which was good because their new forces were the only ones with ammunition. But in the confusion I managed to control the one crucial thing: the intersection of phalanxes and cavalry. Their cavalry met the sharp end of my phalanxes, and their phalanx headed off into the distance pursuing a unit of my slingers who were out of bullets. I didn’t order that, the captain of the slingers did it himself. If I had a daughter, she’d be married to him by now and he’d be a chief.
I rallied my men continually. Their morale is good and they trust me a lot. So it was the Skythians who started to rout, here and there, and as they thinned I slowly put a proper line back together to fix their remaining units. A third of the falx men still lived, so they swung around this line and their blades drank well again. My chiefs charged their more stubborn units from behind. And we routed all of them, and there was a glorious pursuit, and good slaughter. Then the slingers led their phalanx back to my army to die.
It was a heroic victory. We counted 827 of their bodies on the field, and 451 of ours. Now I am wintering in Olbia, which we took from a few dozen survivors after the battle.
... so I won by outmanoevring their cavalry with my infantry, whilst surrounded. I had no idea whether I was going to win or lose until they were routing.
a lil help here please..sending us on whild goose chases looking for tutorials on how to add units dosent help...i looked on this forum not one single one for EB..If it be so simple please show me how to do it..i have no clue what an edu is lol if you get my meaning. Thanks.:dizzy2:
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